Cutting Costs on a home office PC

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Abstractfear

Abstractfear

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May 20, 2013
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I'm a PC Enthusiast, and tend to over do it a bit when putting together a rig. I'm putting together a home office, and would enjoy building a dedicated PC. Have I over done it?

CPU: AMD ATHLON X4 Processor AD740XOKHJBOX

MOBO: BIOSTAR Socket FM2/AMD A85/DDR3/SATA3​&USB3.0/A&GbE/A​TX Motherboard HI-FI A85W

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory (CML4GX3M2A160​0C9)

HDD: Western Digital 1 TB SATA III 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive, Black, WD1003FZEX

GPU: HIS Radeon HD 6670 1GB (128bit) GDDR5 HDMI DVI-D (HDCP) VGA PCI Express X16 2.1 Low Profile Graphics Cards H667FN1G

CASE: Corsair Carbide Series 200R Compact ATX Case CC-9011023-WW

OPTICAL: Samsung Electronics SATA 1.5 Gb-s Optical Drive, Black SH-224DB/BEBE

PSU: Corsair CX Series 500 Watt ATX/EPS Modular 80 PLUS Bronze ATX12V/EPS12V 456 Power Supply CX500M

NIC: TP-LINK TL-WN951N Wireless N300 Advanced PCI Adapter, 2.4GHz 300Mbps, Include Low-profile Bracket

MONITOR: Asus VS247H-P 23.6-Inch Full-HD LED-Lit LCD Monitor

I have a copy of Windows 7 pro already.
 
Solution
Onus
The best thing you can do for the performance of an office PC is put a SSD in it. A hybrid SSHD may be more cost-effective, but only provides most of the benefits, some of the time. Since your goal is to cut costs, I'd go with a smaller SSD (120GB) and then a mechanical drive if more data storage is needed. At Newegg, there's a Shellshocker coming up in about 40 minutes on a 128GB Samsung 840 Pro.
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Onus

Onus

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Jan 27, 2006
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While I might have chosen alternate parts, what you've chosen is fit for purpose, so I don't see a need to niggle. The answer to your question remains "No, not really." The only thing you might reduce there is the video card, to a HD6450 or HD5450; either is fully capable of running any office applications, streaming, Flash, etc. and can even play casual titles (if there will be any games played at all). Although I wouldn't use one in a gamer, the Corsair "CX" should be fine in a low-power office build like this one.
 
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RazerZ

RazerZ

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Aug 18, 2013
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This should make for a decent, cheap office pc. You can always upgrade it if you want to make it a decent gaming rig later on.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Pentium G3220 3.0GHz Dual-Core Processor ($54.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Asus H81M-D PLUS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($52.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: A-Data XPG V1.0 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($55.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($14.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $263.91
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-06 17:02 EDT-0400)

 
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Brunostako

Brunostako

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Dec 16, 2013
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I think you did.

And you want just an office PC (MS Office & Web only), your rig is too much.

If you're going with AMD, look for a cheap FM2+ MoBo so you can upgrade in the future if you want. I would go with an A78 chipset.

For the CPU, go for an APU. An A8-6500 can easily handle any everyday task and have an iGPU. A8-6500 should be cheaper than the Athlon 740 + HD6670 and the A8-6500 CPU part is more powerful than the Athlon 740, but the HD8570D is weaker than HD6670. Also you could go with an Intel Haswel platform, Pentiums have great value.

RAM... who cares? Go for the cheaper 1600MHz dual channel kit you can get. In office machines low latency is more important than bandwidth.

For storage, you can invest a bit more a get a hybrid HDD. I know few of this topic so you may ignore my opinion.

For everything else, go cheap. Maybe a good LED monitor would be nice and a good brand PSU is safer, but..meh.

Unless you're planing to do more than office work, that would do it.

Saludos desde México.
 
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Abstractfear

Abstractfear

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May 20, 2013
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My entire need/want is zero latency. I've delt with my fair share of "Cheap computers" that struggle to start Windows. Basically I need a modern PC, capable of Smooth operations throughout. I should add that I will be Visualizing different windows and linux environments. I won't need an upgrade path really, as I have built a gaming rig (I can post specs for the pc lovers like myself if you'd like).
 
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Onus

Onus

Titan
Jan 27, 2006
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The best thing you can do for the performance of an office PC is put a SSD in it. A hybrid SSHD may be more cost-effective, but only provides most of the benefits, some of the time. Since your goal is to cut costs, I'd go with a smaller SSD (120GB) and then a mechanical drive if more data storage is needed. At Newegg, there's a Shellshocker coming up in about 40 minutes on a 128GB Samsung 840 Pro.
 
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